Dream City

Carla Hall stepped out into deep indigo, that never-quite pitch that hovers until dawn. It’s as if the planet spots its head, never quite taking her eye off the sun. Or maybe the world revolves around this one city. Some Angeleno’s would certainly thrill to believe that. Others hold it in their bones as absolute truth. But night falls here. And Carla tumbles into it. Down from the rooftop bar with its buzzing heated lamps and six tops of bros, one floor leaked reggaeton into the stairwell. The next pulsed out top 40 hip hop. Until finally, Carla slithers through sweaty, matted clusters, ebbing and cresting under the incantation of some anonymous pop karaoke. Two men cowering from the approach of middle age lob crass anecdotes overhead as she pinches through the dried urine miasma of the doorway. They are a pair of good midwestern boys flexing their edge at one another in their uniforms of distressed denim and pomade tousled hair.

“Micro-dosing is the next big wave after ayahuasca,” says one or another of them. “You do have to be careful, though. My roommate had a terrible trip once. That’s actually how I got this. Thank god for Cedars Sinai, but I still can’t use my thumb on this hand.” The October air is soft. The crown of palms on the low hills are punctuated by dim jewels. String lights, various backyards, and balconies on high - and the aspirational lives they mark - cast a charm that lends a romantic haze even to the vacant lots, taco trucks, and cigarette shops below. Or maybe it's tequila.

Carla wobbles a few steps to the familiar white van. The man inside doesn’t look up. But she places her order with the small, round woman sitting in the folding chair between the van and a small cart with utensil-and-napkin-filled snack boxes zip-tied to the frame. A long black braid sweeps across the woman’s bottom as she turns and slaps the window. “Tres veggie,” is all she says as her agile hands perform the ritual of foam plate, sliced cucumber, lime wedge, cilantro. The sweet waft of American Spirit kisses Carla’s nose. “This chick wanted to go to Boyle Heights,” laughs one of the wonder bread twins behind her. Carla steps back from the van and produces a white box with a silver chevron. She fumbles through her pockets, but only finds a matchbook from some chain restaurant on sunset, across the street from her gym. She tucks her forward-most twists of hair behind her ears and lights her Nth cigarette of the night. “There was this garage, right. And all those vatos are crazy, you know. But they do tattoos in the back. So we both got this.”

“Tres veggie.” The round woman with long hair, quick hands, and bored eyes thrusts tongs into a bin of pickled red onion and finishes off Carla’s plate. A clump of hopelessly rumpled singles changes hands. “Gracias.”

Carla flicks the rest of her cigarette deftly into the road. It’s going on two. But she can walk home much faster than an Uber will come, probably. Insulated against the desert night by three double tequila rocks, she sways down the pavement. Carla hums gently to herself and dribbles a morsel of masticated cornmeal onto the oversized cardigan she swiped from her roommate.

A few corners from home, red and white lights bounce off the window of her roommate’s favorite vegan cafe. At the other end of the dark lane, two or three response vehicles form a low wall. No crowd gathers, but Carla snatches the word crowbar from the whispers of passersby and crosses the street. She hugs the property line and avoids eye contact with the homeless mutterer taking a shit at the bus stop. "You think you’re better than me?” He spits through thick whiskers, swinging his chin over his shoulder as she passes. “You're no better than me.” Dodging around a shopping cart, a bubbling cauldron of luggage, blankets, and plastic, Carla lights another cigarette to look busy. With a sharp huff, she cuts through the empty Walgreens parking lot.

There’s a graffiti-tagged van parked near the exit. In daylight, an old man sits in the back and offers cobbling services. Irregular stacks of old shoes, paired off by rubber bands, threaten to topple into the road but never do. The floodlight from the back of a Mexican restaurant abruptly falls dark. A man heaves several trash bags to the dumpster in the newly unlit alleyway. But he has forgotten to remove his apron and hat. Carla grimaces and veers toward the chain fence on her other side to avoid the pungent vapors as the garbage lid flaps with each deposit. She feels something hard and flat under one foot, while the other sinks into the gravel. A black leather notebook lays between her foot and a tuft of weeded grass at the base of the fence. It is the same kind of book she has two or three of, with her name and phone number in the front and empty waiting pages that her wandering thoughts never seem profound enough to fill. Perhaps in solidarity with its kin, Carla picks up the book. Henry Butler is the name on the first page. And there’s a number, too. Carla flips the book shut and tucks it against her wrist in one hand. She makes a sharp left at the end of the alley and trudges up the three steps to her door.

In the far corner of the dark studio is a mattress. Light from the neighbor’s garage falls through the blinds in stripes over the body of Lake Malcolm, Carla’s roommate. Hall turns the knob slowly to muffle the lock. She kicks one of the many short piles of books lining the walls, but Lake doesn’t stir. Relieved, Carla throws off the borrowed sweater and settles into her own, partially deflated air bed.

The door slamming by her head startles Carla awake. She turns over to see Lake scooping up her sweater with an eye-roll and crossing to her own space. “I hope you don’t mind.” Carla offers. “It was a little crisp last night.” Lake had declined hitting the bar together in favor of visiting her crush under the guise of audition prep. “Owen says hi,” Lake breezes, ignoring Carla’s not-quite apology and tossing a pair of keys and the black book across the large room. They land on the inflate-a-bed with force, knocking Carla’s phone onto the hardwood. “Oh, thanks.” Without emotion, Carla sweeps her phone off the floor and dials the number on the inside page. No answer. “Someone lost this in the alley,” she explains, shaking the book towards her friend. But a vaguely contemptuous grunt was all Lake bothered to reply. A small receipt slips from between the middle pages. “Huh. There’s a ticket for the Ramada on Olympic,” Carla tosses into the stale silence. “If I can’t reach him by phone, I’ll turn in the book there.” “Well,” Lake replies with a sudden rustle. “Maybe if it’s all that important he’ll give you a reward. I’d love to mooch off of you for once.”

Lake, Owen, and Carla had met in drama school overseas. Carla was a scholarship case, but Lake and Owen had famous parents in journalism and academia respectively. Lake, in particular, resented being poor and unknown in Los Angeles at 29. She had been in a movie with Judi Dench and Chris Pine just out of school. She nailed her one scene and was the cast darling. But she blew off the premier to visit her then-boyfriend, who had been detained as a menace to society. Apparently leaning out a second-story window and spitting your lager like a fountain over the heads of passing patrolmen is frowned upon by her majesty's courts. Neither the director, the producers, nor Lake’s representatives were at all amused. But having returned stateside, her parents rent her this studio while she gets back on her feet. In the meantime, Lake quits every babysitting job she gets after two weeks. She wants to be a waitress at the kind of restaurant where you can be discovered. But she can't get hired. Carla offers to buy coffee from the bookstore on the corner, where Lake hangs with the skaters and the junkies. But her effort to appease her host's mood is rebuffed.

Carla calls the number from the book once more in the Uber on her way to work, and again at her break. But the latter part of her shift slinging acai to the wannabes and almosts of West Hollywood hits a late rush. The tunnel vision of blending a never-ending flow of frozen fruit, while being videotaped by nineteen-year-old aspiring Jenners with cheek implants, carries Carla to clock out time. It is then she sees the six missed calls. It's the number in the book. The multiple voicemails crescendo in tone and variety of expletive, before tapering off to pleading. “Everything I have,” moans the recorded Butler. “Please. Please. That money is all I have. My clothes… please.” The last halting message trails off.

Carla pulls the book from her backpack and flips it open. She had tucked the Ramada ticket into the front crease. But it isn't there now. She spreads the covers and shakes the leaves with vigor. She even empties and inventories her pack. Twice. And then a third time just in case. Nothing. After confirming her alibi to the police, Carla finally meets Henry Butler. He tells her the Ramada ticket was for a storage box. A small brass key that went with the ticket had been in the back envelope pocket of the book and is also missing. The storage box, now empty, had contained a hiking pack with a camera, a laptop, a passport, clothes, and twenty thousand dollars in cash. Henry Butler was a photographer that had arrived in Los Angeles the previous day. But had left his bag in storage overnight at his hotel. The money was the remains of his father’s life insurance policy and Butler had meant to open a new bank account with it. It was already early evening when he arrived, so he wanted to keep his things safe while he visited with friends in the city. He had kept the book with him in a messenger bag. But while Butler and his friends were roughhousing on the way to a local bar, the book fell out. Having just arrived and with no job to report to, Butler had turned off the ringer on his phone and didn’t turn it on again until he arrived back at the hotel and noticed his loss. The hotel used his ID and room number to locate his storage box, but it had already been emptied.

When Carla finally arrives home, it is evening again. The studio is so dark, even with the light from the garage. A sour smell blows through the open window. And three flies gather on the sill. Half the closet is empty and Carla’s suitcase is gone. Lake's possessions had all been shipped out inboxes. The chakra charts and yoga timetables are still on the wall, but only pushpin holes remain where photos of Erykah Badu and Billie Holiday had been. In the weeks and months that follow, Carla would be hounded by everyone from Lake’s parents, to classmates. Even the manager of the bookstore cafe would come sniffing about for gossip. For now, Carla plugs in the mattress pump. It had always been too loud to use in company. So Carla had stolen moments to top up when Lake went outside for smoking breaks. Against a palest blue background, Lake’s face smirks through bars of shadow cast from the window onto the pile of headshots in the corner.